The rower Marcus Cooper, The Olympic champion at Rio 2016 and runner-up at Tokyo 2020, has revealed that he doesn’t know if he can appreciate something as big as “carrying the best flag in the world” as he is the leading candidate to be Spain’s flag bearer at the Paris Olympic Games 2024.
“I don’t know if I can appreciate something as great as carrying the best flag in the world.” and the country I have represented since I started canoeing. “He has a big responsibility, which is to be surrounded by the best athletes who share those values, to give everything and have an adrenaline rush when going to the biggest event in the world,” said Cooper, this Wednesday, in Iberia Talent Team event on Board, attended by other athletes such as judoka Niko Shera, gymnast Ray Zapata or taekwondo player Adriana Cerezo, among others.
The 29-year-old athlete is very animated in this last phase before the Olympic event, where he and his teammates are “closing the funnel” to finalize the coupling and technique details because he believes that ” they have a small margin for improvement ” and emphasized that in K4 the opponent to beat is Germany, although there has been a “level rise in other countries.”
Regarding competing in two events (K2 and K4, both at 500 meters) for the first time in his career, Cooper said he wanted to improve himself: “This is the first time I can compete in two modalities, which is the way I want to improve myself.”“, and the objective is to give my best, to be competitive in both modalities,” explained the paddler, who admitted that he does not set “quantitative objectives”, but it is possible that he will go home “with two joys.”
On the other hand, Ray Zapataa gymnast who won a silver medal on the floor at the Tokyo Olympics, admitted that “The bug is always there” and she is “stronger” with a week left to compete and revealed that she is experiencing this Olympic event with more peace of mind because she now has a medal to take home.
“We are the first sport to fight and I think it will be beautiful. I have the peace of mind of having a medal and now it is a personal challenge because I want to improve the result. I’m going for it, I think I can achieve it,” said Zapata, who noted that “he is happy and very excited.”
Those in the French capital will be the third Olympic Games for Ray Zapata, who initially could not qualify for the final in his specialty, the floor, and had to settle for eleventh place; and that in Tokyo he got the silver medal in the floor test, with a score of 14.933, the same as Artiom Dolgopiat, but that, due to the difficulty of his exercise, it was a tenth less than the Israeli – who got gold – and, therefore, ranked second.
Source: La Verdad
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